


I Needed That

by decreasethesurpluspopulation



Series: Making A Change [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, M/M, No Smut, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Sad Castiel, Still, Worried Gabriel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 15:18:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8494954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decreasethesurpluspopulation/pseuds/decreasethesurpluspopulation
Summary: I'll save you the self-deprecating spiel, and let you read the summary. What at first had Castiel happy beyond measurement, now has him regretting everything. And so, he falls back on old habits in order to cope with his new problems.





	

**Author's Note:**

> You know, I keep saying that I might not come back, and yet, here I am. We'll see how this goes over with you guys.

The key turning in the lock sounds as if it could wake the dead, so Castiel opens the door slowly. He feels only a little ridiculous, sneaking into the apartment as if he’s a teen out past curfew, but he doesn’t want to wake anyone. He doesn’t feel much like conversation right now, and would prefer to go to sleep as soon as possible.  
Even so, he comes in quietly, put his shoes down neatly next to the others, and walks softly along the fluffy white carpet. Castiel is feeling confident in his skills until he gets to the bottom of the stairs-  
“How’s it hanging, James Bond?”  
Castiel flinches, “Gabriel,” Now he notices the humanoid shadow at the last few steps, taking its time coming to him. “I can explain,” he says in a low whisper.  
His brother pays him no mind, and flicks on the lights, blinding him momentarily. Gabriel whispers to him loudly, “No one else is here for you to whisper for, li’l bro.” He comes down from the stairs and moves around Castiel to get to the small bar in the living room.  
He nods for Castiel to sit down, pulling out a shot glass and a tumbler, the former he fills with ginger ale, the other with more grenadine than vodka and sprite. Castiel raises an eyebrow.  
“What? You look like you could use a drink.” Castiel scoffs, and doesn’t say anything. “I know, this isn’t technically a drink, but…” Castiel raises both eyebrows and looks at Gabriel until he acquiesces and pulls out the tequila bottle from the shelf below the counter.  
Castiel sits down at one of the oddly shaped stools, seeing no reason not to now, reaches for the shot glass, now filled with actual alcohol, and throws it back quickly. “Thank you, brother, I needed that.” He pushes the glass back for more, “Where is Kali?”  
“Having a long weekend at her mother’s. Some kind of big family function.” He drinks his alcohol flavored sugar and leans all too casually against the counter. Castiel dreads what’s coming even as Gabriel asks. “Not that I don’t enjoy your company, mi hermano, but I can’t help but be curious as to why you’re here and not snuggled up with a certain green-eyed wonder boy we all know and lo-”  
Castiel’s stomach clenches, “Gabriel, I don’t wish to discuss it-”  
“Yeah, well, I’m letting you drink my booze, so I get to say what we discuss.” He takes another sip of his sugary drink, and slides him another shot, “Spill.”  
Castiel takes the second just as quick as he took the first, and tries reaching for the bottle itself.  
Gabriel swipes it before he can get his hands on it, “Oh, no, Cassie, you can’t drink if you don’t talk.”  
“Perhaps, if you would allow to me imbibe in more alcohol, I’d be more willing to share.” Castiel knows that it’s a slippery slope his sliding on, but if Gabriel is confident enough in him to be able to hold himself steady, then he will believe so as well.  
Gabriel only laughs, “We both know I don’t have enough alcohol in this place that would get you drunk enough, so you’re just going to have to be honest and sober.”  
Castiel gives a deep sigh and puts his crossed arms onto the counter. He tries to figure out how to phrase this without letting it fall out of him in a great wave. No, he decides, that he can do when he is alone. Right now, he says, “We’ve had a bit of a misunderstanding, so we’ve decided to give each other some… space.” It’s mostly true. Although, space is the last thing Castiel wants to give Dean.  
Gabriel raises his eyebrows at him. “That’s it?”  
“That is all.”  
“No,” Gabriel says shaking his head. He sets the bottle back down and immediately Castiel picks it up and takes a long pull before Gabriel can regret the decision. He can see Gabriel tracking his movements with worried eyes, but he isn’t very concerned with that himself. “See, I’ve known you guys to get pretty intense with the feelings and all that soft, squishy stuff, but you’ve never walked away from it.”  
Castiel knows this, and it’s even more painful when someone else points it out to him, so he takes another drink in response. He should’ve stayed. He knows that he should not have left, because Dean could get so inside himself sometimes. Castiel is usually the one to bring him out of that bad head space. But what was he to do when Dean wouldn’t even-  
Castiel shakes the memory and the emotion away, and plans to take another drink, but Gabriel takes the bottle away again, “I said honest and sober, Castiel.”  
“You said that this amount wouldn’t get me drunk anyway,”  
Gabriel puts the cap back on it and puts the tequila on the shelf, “Yeah, well, no reason to waste then.”  
When Gabriel turns back to face him, Castiel knows that if his big brother asks him one more well-placed question, he will most assuredly crack. He knows that Gabriel knows this as well, and is afraid that he might ask despite this.  
Gabriel must see the fear, or desperation, or something similar in his eyes, because he only smirks and pats his shoulder, “Well, your room is always open to you, Cassie, you know that.”  
Castiel nods and rises from the stool, “Yes, thank you, Gabriel.” He turns to go up the stairs, but stops when Gabriel calls for him. He looks back at him, and it dawns on Castiel that this is probably one of few situations that he’s seen his brother be serious. It’s only a little disconcerting.  
“Cassie,” he breathes deeply for a second, “It’s gonna be okay. I just want to tell you that.”  
Castiel can’t hold his eyes any longer and glances away quickly, “Thank yo-” his voice breaks, but he continues, “Thank you, brother.”  
Gabriel only nods.  
Castiel goes back up the stairs and thinks he hears Gabe say something but is too tired to ask. As soon as he can, he removes his clothing and gets into bed. He tells himself to ignore how empty and cold it is, and drifts off to a fitful, dreamless sleep after finally settling. 

 

When Castiel wakes early the next day, he doesn’t have those few seconds of sweet ignorance in which he forgets that he is in his brother’s home, and believes he is instead in bed with Dean. It’s actually as if he hadn’t slept at all, because he wakes up with his thoughts picking up exactly where they left off.  
He realizes he’s holding a pillow to his chest, blatantly cuddling a pillow, and immediately pushes it off the bed in disgust. His heart aches as he realizes the meaning behind it, so he pushes it out of his mind.  
Castiel wishes his brain had tricked him, as it would’ve been a bit of relief from the constant guilt, shame, and anxiousness turning around in his stomach and bubbling up to his throat every so often. However, Castiel knows he’ll feel like this until he goes back to Dean, sees him with his own eyes. Not knowing what he’s doing or how he’s handling himself is no help. He supposes he could call, but after Dean could barely look at him, Castiel doubts he’d want to hear from him at all.  
Oh, how he wishes he had done so many things differently. He did not handle Dean’s confession well, he knows. It had brought him such unadulterated joy that he couldn’t contain his need to confess in kind. Despite knowing Dean more than he knows himself, despite knowing that Dean hadn’t meant to say something of that weight so soon, he had been selfish, and stole that confession as it slipped from Dean. He stole it and ran with it. Castiel had wanted Dean to say those words since he was sixteen years old and thought he knew what love was. Now it seems even ten years later, he still knows nothing.  
He’d been eager and stupid, and now he was here. Years of unknowingly, and knowingly, being in love with Dean, and Castiel could not wait a few seconds, and throws it in Dean’s face when he’s given the first chance.  
Castiel runs to the bathroom attached to the room and vomits what little he ate yesterday.  
After he finishes and rinses his mouth out, he stumbles down the stairs quietly and swipes the tequila from the small bar to brace himself for his return to the cold bed. He picks the pillow from the ground and clutches the pillow to his stomach. He numbs that pain he feels at the obvious patheticness of the gesture with a couple swallows of his preferred drink. 

 

It isn’t until Tuesday morning that Gabriel truly confronts him.  
Up until then, his brother has let him sleep most of the weekend away and grumpily binge on Netflix the rest of his times there. Between the sulking, the marathoning and the sleeping, Castiel manages to find time to walk the couple blocks down to the liquor store. Not often enough for it to be a glaring problem, but Castiel knows Gabriel doesn’t approve. He feels that disapproval acutely, when he wakes and finds his most recent purchase missing and a bottle of water in its place.  
Never let it be said that Castiel hates his brother.  
The only way he truly acknowledges time’s passage is when Gabriel comes into his room to say he’s leaving to work his shift at the bar for the night.

 

Sunday night, Castiel had waited until Gabriel had left the apartment and then began his routine run to the liquor store. He’d bought two bottles, and began thinking it might be time to find a new liquor store, as the cashier at this one had started asking him more questions. Castiel realized he must look suspicious with his unshaven and generally unkempt appearance, buying alcohol twice on Saturday, and then this night as well, so he resolves to go to gas station in the opposite direction next time.  
Castiel made it just inside the door before taking a gratifyingly burning swig, and then climbed the stairs and settled into bed with his pillow to queue up the next episode of Shameless.  
The show, as crazy as it is, didn’t hold his attention for long, and he played a drinking game with himself, one shot for every time he thought of Dean.  
He finished the whole first bottle before the episode was over.

 

He must have fallen asleep, because he wakes later when the sun fills the room with a late-morning light, and Gabriel is asking him something through the door.  
Castiel sits up, “What?” his voice comes out too loud and scratching up his throat.  
“Cassie, you alive in there?” He says it jokingly, but Castiel can hear the slight panicked edge. He must have been asking for him for awhile.  
Castiel pushes aside the guilt and answers, “Of course, one moment.” After he is sure he is appropriately clothed and his bottles are secure, he opens the door to find Gabriel, waiting with a mug of coffee. He accepts it carefully and fights the temptation to spike it, “Thank you.”  
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I put in all the sugar you like.” Gabriel walks down the hall as he continues, “You know, for all crap you like in your coffee, you’d think you ease up on teasing me about how sweet I take my drinks.”  
Castiel rolls his eyes as he follows him down the stairs, “It’s different.”  
His brother sputters indignantly, “Whah? How?”  
“I’m not arguing with you about this, Gabriel. I’ve already humored you enough on this topic in the past.”  
Gabriel finishes making his own cup, also filled with large amounts of cream and sugar, Castiel notices smugly, and turns back to face him. “Yeah, well, humor me this, Cassie-boy.”  
“I don’t believe that’s how that word is-”  
“Don’t avoid the subject.”  
Castiel puts his cup on the counter, and looks his brother in the eye, “There is no subject to avoid.”  
“Like hell there isn’t. You’ve been here the whole weekend, Castiel. Drinking and sleeping, so I’m assuming it wasn’t to hang out with your big brother.”  
Castiel feels a quick stab of guilt, “Gabriel I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”  
Gabriel cuts him off angrily, “Thanks, but that’s not the point. There’s something you’re avoiding.”  
“I- I can’t-” Castiel can’t think of something else to say to derail the conversation, and there’s no possible way he can tell Gabriel what happened, so he makes for the stairs. Like a coward. Just as he ran from Dean, like a coward, because he is a coward.  
“Hey!” Gabriel has him turned around by the shoulder before he can even think to stop. Castiel always seems to forget how supernaturally fast the shorter man can be when he wants. “Baby bro, you don’t have to tell me everything, or anything, but I just,” Gabriel’s grip on his arm becomes softer, “I just want to know that you won’t kill yourself over whatever this is, okay?” It shames Castiel to know that Gabriel is both exaggerating and being the most sincere he has ever been.  
He nods and looks at his brother solemnly, “I will not “kill” myself over this.” He says, complete with air quotes.  
Gabriel rolls his eyes, but can’t fight the smile he’s forming at his little brother’s antics. He punches the arm he was holding, “Damn you, I was trying to be serious, you douche.”  
Castiel gives a small smile back, “I appreciate it, brother, I do.”  
“In all seriousness, though, dude. I gotta make sure you’ve got some kind of grip on this drinking, though. I know how easy it is for you to fall back to old habits, and I don’t want you to screw up the hard work you’ve put in to get this far.”  
Castiel nods more somberly this time, “I know. And you’ve been more than generous and patient with me these past few days, and I appreciate it, truly, Gabriel. I should apologize for my abhorred behavior-”  
“Just, promise me that you’ll call him?”  
Castiel looks away then, because even thinking of talking to Dean, especially after this terrible bender of a weekend, where he’s done nothing but drown in alcohol and self-pity. The shame he feels sobers him quickly, and all he wants is to drink more to counteract it. Dean was so happy when he was able to stop, and now? How can he tell that beautiful, trusting man that he failed?  
Castiel doesn’t think he could ever face Dean again after sliding so far down this slippery slope again. And that thought alone has him itching for another drink.  
Castiel is unwilling to lie to Gabriel, and assure him that he’ll call, because, as he remembers from his more dangerous days of drinking, lying over small matters only encourages dishonesty with larger problems. “I will try, Gabriel, I swear it.”  
His brother looks him intensely in the eyes, and Castiel holds his gaze. He knows Gabriel can probably see his soul with those golden eyes of his, because Gabriel has always been intuitive in that otherworldly respect. Not for the first time, Castiel wonders at what it is that Gabriel sees when they share these looks.  
It seems he finds whatever he is searching for when Gabriel nods slightly, and smiles easily at his brother, the moment gone. “That’s great, li’l bro.” He walks backwards towards the door, “So, I’m gonna go pick Kali up from the airport, and not that I don’t love you, but you better not be here when I get back.” He grabs his keys from the hook, “Capisce?”  
Castiel gives a small wave, “I capisce.”  
“Excellent. Later, Bro-ski.”  
With that, the door shuts and the apartment is silent once more.  
Which is lucky, because in that silence, Castiel can hear his cell phone vibrating from upstairs. He nearly trips on the stairs in his mad rush to the phone, and yanks it off the charging port, cord and all. He swipes to answer, not checking the ID, “Dean?” he says hopefully.  
Charlie’s kind voice answers him instead, “Not exactly, hon.”  
Castiel didn’t know he was tearing up until his vision blurs, but he wipes his eyes swiftly, ignoring the living pain that grows with each breath as his hopes are obliterated. He clears his throat, “Hello, Charlie. How are you?”

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, if you can't tell, I'm super into writing about fraternal relationships, because what is this show if not a story about brotherhood (with a side love story between an angel and human, but I digress).  
> Let me know what you think!


End file.
